


Keep Your Enemies Closer

by EndOfStoryGoodbyeTheEnd



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-24 07:54:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7500219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EndOfStoryGoodbyeTheEnd/pseuds/EndOfStoryGoodbyeTheEnd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Octavia and the dog are not friends. She and the dog just happen to be head over heels for the same person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep Your Enemies Closer

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I wrote this in basically 48 hours, thanks to all my friends who edited like crazy and put up with this being the only thing I would talk about for two straight days. BUT IT'S FINALLY DONE, ONLY LIKE AN HOUR OFF DEADLINE. I hope you enjoy.

She’s ninety percent sure dogs aren’t allowed in Best Buy. 

Honestly, she’s fine with dogs not being allowed in Best Buy. If she wants to see a dog she would go to her brother’s, not Best Buy. Her brother has two dogs that he’d collected when he’d needed something new to baby when she’d moved out. But here she is with half a mind to call over an employee to ask them why on Earth there’s a fucking dog sniffing her feet as she tries to look at vacuums. 

“Get off,” she hisses, as she almost trips over the thing trying to look at the price of a Shark. 

The dog completely ignores her, continuing to merrily invade her personal space. It really is huge, lanky and grey with black mottled spots. Standing up straight and not slobbering all over her nice new boots, it’s easily up to her shoulder. If she has to hazard a guess, being distinctly not someone who knows dog breeds, she’d say Great Dane. 

She carefully maneuvers away from the dog again, sliding closer to the wall of vacuums. It follows her, eagerly sniffing at her heels. 

“Bad dog,” she mutters, trying to twist her body away from its head. The damn thing presses closer, its tail thwacking against the shelves loudly. Jesus, if there’s that much power in the tail…

She puts both hands on its neck gingerly, and when it doesn’t spin and try to kill her she tries to push its head away. 

It turns sideways and leans into her, pressing its weight into her body and effectively trapping her against the shelves. All of the air whooshes out of her at once as the dog leans into her chest. The bottom of a vacuum digs into her shoulder blade while the shape of a plastic price plaque becomes embedded in her spine. Her hands fly up in protest, shoving in vain at the animals lean and muscular body when-

“Lace! Hey, Lacey, get off her!”

She can breathe again, sweet freedom. The dog (Lacey, what a spoiled pretty princess name for a dog) is off, bounding away towards its (her, really?) owner. She pushes herself off the shelf, ready to tear the owner a new one. She doesn’t care if dogs are allowed in Best Buy (she’s still sure they aren’t but that’s an issue for later), leashes exist for a reason and if this asshat can’t keep control of his mini-horse he shouldn’t have it loose. 

Upon looking up and catching sight of the little scene taking place in front of her, she finds herself rethinking this plan for a second. The owner is holding his dog's collar and hauling the huge animal with minimal difficulty towards her. Oh, he’s damn lucky he’s pretty. Tall, ripped, and covered in intricate tattoos she wouldn’t mind getting a closer look at. 

“Hey, I’m so sorry, she never does that,” the owner says. He’s close enough to her now that she can see the color of his eyes, and they’re a rich, dark brown she thinks she could get used to very fast. 

Fuck it, no one ever said she wasn’t a little shallow. He’s smiling at her so apologetically and it’s making her feel things. Her intention is just to shrug it off, but then she feels the dog’s wet nose press into her hand. 

She means to tell him it’s fine. What comes out of her mouth is entirely different. 

“Yeah, that’s what they all say.”

Well, no one ever said she couldn’t be an asshole either. 

But, to her surprise, he just laughs. “Wow, I guess people do say that a lot when their pets misbehave.”

If she wasn’t so surprised by his reaction, she might’ve focused more on his laugh, which was one of those deep, real ones that made you sure it was genuine. Instead, she shrugs. 

“Gotta keep appearances up.”

He smiles. “I do promise in my case I mean it truthfully, she never does that. She’s good at staying by me. I guess she just has good taste.”

She raises an eyebrow to maintain a cool air, but can’t help a grin. “Really? I’d be flattered if I wasn’t just shoved into a wall.”

He grimaces. “I’m sorry about that, she doesn’t know how big she is,” the dog, having retreated back to him after nosing her, is sitting calmly at his side. He rubs her ears a few times, and the creature butts her head into his side like a huge, slobbery cat. 

She stares at the dog, who stares back, and she swears there’s a malicious intent in her big, blue-grey eyes. She keeps her eyes locked on the animal, but the response is for him. “It’s fine. I’m sure she didn’t mean to.”

The dog tilts her head to the side, almost saying, “You sure?”

“Still, I feel bad. Can I buy you a coffee as an apology?” his voice tears her eyes away from the dogs, and she can’t help feeling like she just lost a staring contest. To a dog. 

Suddenly her current vacuum doesn’t seem nearly as shitty and she can survive with it a bit longer. “Sure, I was going to get one and it’s going to taste better free,” she says, before even thinking about the consequences of letting the dude with the dog buy her coffee. 

He holds out a hand. “I’m Lincoln, by the way.”

She takes his hand and shakes. His hand is huge and warm and she briefly wonders what it would feel like tugging through her hair, running over her arms, between her legs…

There’s a huff beside them, and it startles her out of her thoughts. A quick glance tells her the massive dog has flopped down beside them and started to pant. As she looks, the dog meets her eyes. It’s creepy how serious and intelligent she looks. 

“Octavia,” she responds, taking a step back and running a hand through her hair to take control for a second. 

He smiles at her, and suddenly the dog’s hot breath dusting her shoes with even more spit seems less deplorable. 

“Well, Octavia, what do you like in your coffee?”

They go to the Starbucks a few stores down from Best Buy in the plaza. He doesn’t put the dog on the leash, and Octavia half wonders if the thing will run into the street and die. No such luck. A perfect angel, she strides along at his side, as calmly as if she was on a leash. On the short walk there, she learns he’s 26, owns a bar, and he likes to draw. The two facts are so random and unrelated she finds herself telling him she’s been dancing since she was eight and kickboxing since she was six. 

There’s something stupid in the pleasure she gets from the impressed look he gives her. 

They reach the door to Starbucks and she expects him to leave the dog outside or at least leash her. 

This was naive of her. 

He pulls open the door for her, and she smiles, stepping forward and ends up being shoved aside by 150 pounds of sleek Great Dane. The animal busts in, and the few patrons inside glance up in surprise. The dog is all over the place, sniffing around the store, under people’s tables, around their feet, actually at their food. Gathering herself, she pushes in and waits for him to comment on his animal's behavior. He doesn’t seem to notice, just hums softly as he looks up at the menu. With a casual whistle and a snap of his fingers, he has the dog bounding back over to his side, a barely contained ball of excited chaos. 

“Hi!” a barista calls cheerfully at them from behind the counter, her eyes flicking from the dog back up to Lincoln’s face. “Your dog is really well trained.” 

Lincoln smiles brightly, “Oh, thank you. We’ll have…”

Octavia gapes. Seriously? This place serves food. No way in hell dogs are allowed. 

“-Tavia?” 

She starts. “Hmm?” 

“I ordered for you, I hope that’s okay.” 

“Oh yeah, sure, thanks,” she nods, and turns to look at the dog, who is starting to lap at what might be spilled coffee by the counter. Okay, that’s fine, who cares. Not her dog, not her issue. 

By the time they leave the coffee shop about an hour later, she’s sure of a few things. She hasn’t laughed that hard in a while (it turns out bartenders live fucking interesting lives and have an endless well of stories to tell). She has quite a few of her own funny stories herself as a dance teacher, which he liked, and she has a date next weekend and he better not bring that fucking dog. 

 

Octavia and the dog are not friends. She and the dog just happen to be head over heels for the same person. 

The time spent without the dog is amazing, to the point where she feels she could overlook the dog and might just have found someone who can not only get past her shit but make her feel like she might not have any. 

She does her best to think of activities that don't involve the dog. They’re active people. They go rock climbing, white water rafting, to that beach Bellamy used to drive her, Clarke, and Raven too when they were kids. On the rock wall she learns she likes him in tight fitting t-shirts (not that she couldn’t have guessed that one), white water rafting she learns adrenaline feels just a little bit more exhilarating when he grabs her arm to steady her, and the beach is ten times better when he’s shirtless and splashing her and they’re laughing until they can’t breathe. 

He does take her places without the dog too. Dinners that go on longer than the waitstaff appreciate, but the food is good and the wine is better and he smells like the sea because this dinner is to thank her for the beach. 

He’s quickly becoming her favorite person. But that dog is making it’s way even further onto her shit list. 

A few things she could let go. She isn’t a vindictive person. 

But she has limits as well. 

The first time he kisses her it’s amazing. It’s in his kitchen one morning when she came over to invite him to watch a horror movie later that evening. One second he’s watching her gesture angrily (halfway through a rant about the film system today because he had the audacity to ask if she wanted to see the remake of Poltergeist or the original) and the next second he’s leaning over the counter with a hand in her hair. He tastes like bad coffee and toothpaste and it should be a horrible combination but for some reason it works until she feels something wet press into her side. She jumps away and squeaks in shock. As soon as she notices the dog standing there, wagging her tail and panting excitedly, she sours. She shoves the beast’s head away, and away it goes, wagging it’s tail smugly. Lincoln’s laughing at her, and she gives him a glare. He has no idea what that animal has in store for her. Pure evil. 

They do watch Poltergeist eventually, the original and the new one (which is just as bad as expected), and she’s warm and comfortable wedged between him and the side of the couch. She gets up in the middle of the new one to go to the bathroom because who cares if she misses a minute or two of that shit show. When she returns, it’s to find an enormous pile of lanky limbs and slobber where she used to be. Worst of all, the smug things head is settled calmly on his lap, the rest of her unnatural, uselessly large body spread over the entire couch. Octavia stops and stares right into its soulless eyes, daring it to stay in her spot. 

Lincoln notices her standing there and swallows a mouthful of popcorn. “Octavia, you missed the creepy kid talking to the closet again, and then the lights started going on and off by themselves at night.”

She nods (not breaking eye contact with the beast) like she hadn’t seen that thirty some times before in every other horror movie ever. “Shocking.”

He snorts, and turns his attention back to the movie, clearly expecting her to do the same, but then the dog would win. 

The hellbeast blinks slowly, and turns to rest her head on Lincoln’s thigh. 

Octavia, seething silently, retreats to the armchair, defeated. She sinks into the cold leather, alone and isolated, sulking as she glances back at the dog. She’s horrible, she’s doing this on purpose-

Suddenly her view of the beast is blocked by the popcorn bowl. 

She blinks and looks back at Lincoln. He shakes the bowl a bit when she hasn’t moved quick enough to take any. She grabs a handful and retreats back. 

“So,” Lincoln points at the screen with his pinky, the only finger not occupied with buttery goodness. “The little girl said ‘they’re here.’ Who’s here?”

Octavia sighs. “The poltergeists, obviously, did you even read the title of the movie or see the last one? This is a remake, not an original idea.”

He’s shaking his head. “But this is the exact same thing that happened in the first one, what’s the point? We’ve already seen the movie.”

She whirls to point at him. “Exactly!”

He grins at her, and just like that, it doesn’t matter as much she’s sitting across the room because of a dog. She’s flexible. She’s not about to let a good thing pass her by because of a small horse. 

She’s not this flexible. 

When she falls asleep, 1am pressed to his chest with his arms around her middle, and one of her legs between his. 

When she wakes up, it’s 3am and she’s still got one of his arms tossed over her, and it’s heavy but it’s not what woke her. It’s the 150 pounds of MOTHERFUCKING GREAT DANE, SITTING ON HER CHEST. 

If the line hadn’t already been crossed, it’s been fucking vaulted as she wiggles desperately out from under the monster and ends up falling off the bed onto her ass. 

Noooo, not this flexible. 

When Octavia shows up to her, Clarke, and Raven’s monthly girls night (where they drink, laugh, and consume unhealthy amounts of pizza) she throws herself on the couch and groans loudly for a full minute while they watch her in concern. 

“I’ve broken the pact,” she says, the drama of her actions lessened somewhat by the couch cushions muffling her voice. 

Clarke surfaces from the pile of paper and blankets and mugs of coffee varying in fullness and age that she studies in. It was the last place Octavia saw her three days ago, and it is doubtful she’s left since that time. “Which pact?” 

Octavia mutters profanities into the couch. Multiple pacts with her shit best friends, of course. And the only one she actually remembered making was the one she was breaking. 

Raven pipes up from the kitchen (dear god was she cooking?). “We’ve made a couple pacts, O.” 

This is enough for Octavia to peel her face away from the couch. “That’s it, I’m putting a stop to any and all drunk pacts, ‘kay?” 

“Sober pacts only?” Clarke asks innocently. 

“I hope whatever Raven is making kills you.” 

“Hey!” Raven calls, indignant, from the kitchen. “I’m ordering pizza for dinner, I was just getting popcorn, which now you can’t have.” 

“Seriously though,” Clarke stands, a blanket sliding off her shoulders and paper raining down around her. One of the fuller coffee cups wobbles dangerously on the edge of Clarke’s study nest, but miraculously stays put as Clarke makes her way over to the couch. She swats at Octavia’s legs until she picks them up. Clarke sits down, huffing as Octavia drops her legs in Clarke’s lap. “Which pact did you break?” 

Octavia waves a hand, trying to find the proper wording for the deal they’d made in high school after the Finn debacle. “The never share one.” 

“What?” Raven busts into the room, brandishing her bag of popcorn, too outraged for bowls. Clarke seems shocked too, opening her mouth to reprimand Octavia, who decides it’s time to clarify. 

“Listen, there’s a dog-” 

Raven sighs loudly enough that Octavia stops talking to give her a dirty look. 

Clarke looks curious. “You think that you’re breaking the never share pact with a dog?” 

Now that they’re saying it out loud, Octavia can see how it might sound crazy. But Lacey is out to get her. She has to get it across to them. “I met him when his dog was all over me in Best Buy. Best Buy. He took her in Best Buy.” 

She can’t stress this enough. 

Clarke frowns. “Are dogs even allowed in Best Buy?” 

“Oh, I fucking doubt it,” Octavia sighs, a headache beginning to form already. Clarke maneuvers out from under Octavia and fishes her laptop out of the nest, retreating back to the couch and opening it. 

Raven tuts, seating herself on the arm of the sofa above Octavia’s head like a foul mouthed, terrible, angel of wisdom who smells of butter. “Listen babe, there was this guy once who had a cat, and the damned thing would attack me every time I tried to leave his room. At first I thought it was a demon, but it ended up being a very good wingman.” 

Octavia stares at her, and Clarke even stops typing on her laptop to look up. “Yeah, no Lacey sleeps in the bed.” 

Clarke goes back to typing while Raven sniggers and says, “Lacey, even sounds like a mistress.” 

“Ah!” Clarke calls, causing the two of them to jump. “Sorry. So, only service dogs are allowed in Best Buy. O, you better not be jealous of a service dog.” 

“Oh god, no,” Octavia reassures her. “I’m not that shitty.” 

“That’s good, that would be very shitty of you. So, he just brings his dog everywhere?” Raven asks through a mouthful of popcorn. 

Octavia nods. “Everywhere. Starbucks, the gym, beaches where dogs aren’t allowed, my apartment.”

Raven winces at the last one. “Damn.”

Octavia takes a moment to mourn the loss of her favorite vase. 

Clarke is frowning. “O, you don’t care for dogs that much, and if this guy doesn’t notice to the point that he brings one in your apartment-”

Octavia sighs and sits up. “He’s good, Clarke. He’s quiet but he’s funny and he lets me pay for dinner sometimes because fuck chivalry. He likes to go do crazy things with me, and he fucks like a god and kisses like an angel, but he comes with this massive she-beast he calls a pet and he adores her more than anything.”

By the end of it she’s breathing hard and flushed bright red. Clarke’s gaping at her, and Raven’s still slowly shoveling popcorn into her mouth like she’s watching her twelve o’clock soap opera or something. 

There’s a moment of silence filled only by Raven chewing, then swallowing, then speaking loudly. “Wait, you fucked him already?”

The headache is full force now, and she hasn’t even started drinking yet, which is unfair. She puts a hand over her face and inhales deeply. “Rae, that wasn’t the point.”

Raven shrugs. “It was what I got out if it…”

Clarke finds her voice. “I think Raven is trying to say we feel slightly left out as resident best friends.” 

Raven points at Clarke and nods to confirm this. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” 

Clarke waves the apology off. “We just didn’t know it was so serious between you. Now we want to meet this guy.”

“And the she-beast!” Raven adds. 

Clarke nods. “And the she-beast.”

Octavia flops back down on the couch and groans into the pillow again. Raven taps on her head until she emerges, brushing dark hair out of her face and glaring. 

“Well, dear, the question here is simple. Is the pain worth the pleasure?” Raven sings, taking pity on Octavia and dropping a piece of popcorn into her mouth. 

Octavia chews thoughtfully. “Yeah, it is,” she’s never been more sure of something. “But I can’t go on fighting a fucking animal every step of the way.”

Clarke leans over into Octavia’s field of vision. “Why don’t you try making peace with her?”

Octavia snorts. “Impossible, Clarke, she hates me. We’ll never be friends.”

Clarke shakes her head, tips of blonde hair tickling Octavia’s face. “Not friends. Make peace. Carry around treats, play with her, bring her places, just go places she can go,” Clarke leans closer. “Shove every bit of hatred so far down deep into your soul that you almost forget it’s there and love the dog until it forgets you hate it.” 

Octavia grins slowly. 

Raven claps her hands. “And now, pizza!”

 

Octavia buys dog treats on her way home. She stuffs the pockets of all of her jackets and her pants. They make her pockets smell awful even after she removes the dog treats, but that’s great. Because it’s for that dog. That dog he she loves. 

The next time she sees Lacey (Lacey, not the she-beast) she slips her a treat when Lincoln isn’t looking. The dog takes it with no hesitation, and Octavia feels a little pleased. 

They go to a dog friendly beach and Octavia brings a ball. They run through the shallows even though the air is chilly and the water is just plain frigid. She brought a ball she bought with her own money of her own accord for Lacey. She hurls it into the water and the dog bounds in after, swimming out and back, predictable as clockwork. If Octavia throws the ball, she’ll chase it and bring it back. Octavia doesn’t mind that her arm hurts (she’s sore the next day), doesn’t care that when Lacey shakes she sprays them with sand and freezing saltwater (Jesus fuck was she swimming in actual sand?!), and doesn’t even notice that her car smells like wet dog for like a week after (she takes it to a car wash and pays for them to do the inside like one of the rich assholes her brother hates).

All in all, it was fun (it wasn’t as terrible as it could have been, they made out in the back of her car with Lacey locked outside for a bit and it was a win). 

About four more of these outings later, including the park, a walk, Starbucks again, and Lacey in her apartment again (her poor picture frames), she decides she needs to do something a bit more drastic than force a positive attitude and become a human dog treat. 

That’s the evening she finds herself googling dog parks. 

She swore she would never go back to one after a fateful day when Bellamy was out of town and Clarke was busy studying and Raven had a new motorcycle to fix in Sinclair’s shop. Octavia was quite literally his last choice. So he told her “O, it’s so much easier to just drive them over and let them run for a while, then round them up.”

Octavia can’t “round up” Apollo and Artemis to save her life. 

But here she is, determinedly following Waze to a dog park, Lacey panting in the back. She sent Lincoln a text saying she was stealing his dog while he was at work so she didn’t think it was kidnapping (dognapping?). The dog was on board, and she was just borrowing her for an hour or two. 

The dog park isn’t far, and in no time she’s shutting of her music and turning off the car. She turns to face Lacey, still panting calmly in the back seat. She drooled a little on Octavia’s floor, but she’s determined to let it go. 

“Listen you,” she points at the dog. “You and I have been at odds from the beginning. I don’t particularly like you, and you don’t particularly like me, but we both love him, so we’re gonna suck it up, hmm?”

Lacey continues to pant. Octavia takes this as a yes, and climbs out, walks around the car, and opens the door for Lacey. 

The dog park isn’t as abhorrent as last time. Lacey is simply better trained then Bellamy’s menaces, and yes, she tears off after smells and other beasts and almost trips people. Octavia has to trail behind yelling apologies, but Lacey always glances back to make sure Octavia is still within sight. And yes, Octavia still has to watch her step as she wanders around and dogs still run up to her because they’re inherently over friendly and she still smells like damn dog treats. A particularly huge dog comes up to her, sniffing at her feet, and she skips away a little until it loses interest.

Someone chuckles near her. She glances up to see an older man sitting on a bench with one of those tiny yippy beasts in his lap. 

“Big dogs not your thing?” he asks, smiling. 

She shakes her head, waiting to see where this could possibly go. 

“Which one’s yours? That one?”

He’s pointing at a little puff of white floating its way down by the pond that Octavia had barely registered as a real, living creature let alone a dog. 

Oh, this was going to be good. 

“Nope,” she said, popping the ‘p.’ “That one.” she said, pointing at Lacey, who was bigger than the dog she had just moved away from.

The man looks confused, and Octavia just grins innocently. “Nice talking to you!” she calls, heading toward the long path out of the park. Lacey lopes after her. 

The walk is actually kind of nice. She throws the ball in front of her, and Lacey chases after it then hurtles back, skidding to a dramatic stop that leaves Octavia covered in dirt. She drops the ball and tears off to get a head start on the next throw. By the time they reach the exit, Lacey looks content and a little worn out and Octavia feels similarly. 

This was a success, in her book. 

On the ride home Lacey passes out sprawled on the floor of Octavia’s car. She drools, she’s dirty and muddy from the pond and Octavia hadn’t thought to bring a towel. 

She cannot dognap her boyfriend’s dog and then bring her home filthy and half dead. 

Which is how they both end up soaking wet in Octavia’s backyard covered in her shampoo. Lacey keeps shaking and trying to eat the water, and Octavia is almost as wet as the dog she’s trying to wash. She finally manages to get the suds out and towel the dog kind of dry. She herself is an entirely separate matter. She’s wearing a white shirt that’s now see through, and her jeans are stuck to her body like a second, gross skin. 

She drags Lacey in the house with the intent of throwing her hair up and changing her clothes just to look presentable enough for bringing Lacey back. Unfortunately, the couch is calling to her. She shucks off her jeans and wet shirt and falls on it, dragging the blanket from over the couch over her. 

She wakes up to a dim light. She’s pleasantly warm, and her nose is full of the smell of her shampoo and the outdoors. 

“Hi.”

She turns slowly, and Lincoln is visible over the large warm lump beside her- oh. 

Lacey is sprawled half on top of her, head on her chest but her body beside her, effectively wedging Octavia between the couch and the dog. 

“Hi,” she replies, reaching up to run a hand through her hair. It’s tangled and still slightly damp. 

“You stole my dog.”

She shakes her head. “I borrowed your dog for recreational purposes.” 

“You hate recreation with dogs.”

“I do not,” she denies weakly. 

He raises an eyebrow. 

She sighs. “Fine. I’m making an effort. Your dog isn’t terrible.” 

He grins. “She loves you.” 

Octavia is shocked into silence. When-

He laughs at her expression. “Please, you took her to the beach and threw a ball for like an hour. She was sold.”

Well. If she had known that was all it would take she would’ve done it forever ago. 

“Octavia,” he kneels down next to the couch to be almost eye level (she’s still shorter) and smiles at her. “I love that you did all of this for me, but I love you. That’s all that matters. My dog’s approval isn’t necessary.” 

She sits up a little to kiss him. Lacy’s tail starts to thump against her thigh when the movement wakes her. 

He pulls back. “Now my cat on the other hand…” 

She chucks a pillow at his head. “Shut up and come snuggle with me and the dog.”

**Author's Note:**

> This shit with bringing a dog in places off leash and the employees not saying anything? Real thing my neighbor amusingly does. People get so awkward and he acts so oblivious it's hilarious and birthed this. We ran into him in Best Buy and I decided to write this. So thanks Justin.


End file.
